


Ghosts

by cucumber_of_doom



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: #ThePumpkinIsPeople, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Oops, Will sees ghosts, crack turned into angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 00:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8423023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cucumber_of_doom/pseuds/cucumber_of_doom
Summary: Instead of empathizing with the killer, Will solves crimes by talking to the ghosts of the victims. His life still sucks.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be crack but turned into angst and feels. Oops.  
> The joke was: Will sees ghosts and the moment he walks into Hannibal's house and sees the army of dead souls haunting the place, he says 'fuck it' and retires to Florida.
> 
> Here is the angsty version. Enjoy.

Will Graham is never a normal child. Not when he is five, sitting in the tall grass behind his dad’s trailer, attentively listening to a dead girl telling fairy tales. Sarah will always stay his favorite, sweet and loving and the kind of big sister only existent in children’s books. When they move away at the end of summer, Will cries, his dad not understanding she was no imaginary friend and could not come with them.

It is only later that he learns who those pale people he sees everywhere, are. After being questioned by the police how eight year old Will knew how to find the body of a fifteen year old missing boy, laying half buried in the woods surrounding the cabin he and his father have been living the past few months, he knows. They are the spirits of the dead, unwilling to move on to the afterlife. 

Will never forgets the buzz of the flies on the small clearing, the smell of death heavy in the air and James Henderson staring at him angrily across what had once been him. Will had not known. He will not be able to forget.

That day he also learns that ‚he told me so‘ is not what the police wants to hear after being led to a dead body. They make him learn about child psychiatrists too, and how much crueler his classmates can get. Will has always been odd, but now he is _shrink_ odd. It is the first time Will is looking forward to moving again.

Over time he learns, that people stick around after death for a variety of reasons. Some for revenge, following whoever they think is responsible for their death, unable to influence reality most of the time but seething with rage.

Some for love, unwilling to leave a loved one unprotected. Will like those quiet guardian angels, often parents or grandparents looking out for their family in whatever way they are capable.  
Some stay out of pain, too hurt to let themselves rest, too confused about how they had to die while their murderer lives on.

Sometimes they are bound to places, sometimes to people but what makes them choose, _if_ they get to choose, Will never figures out. They don’t know themselves, he asked.

 

*

 

As Will grows older, he learns to keep his mouth shut and not to stare at things others can’t see. It only means trouble and he is sick of people trying to fix him, so he makes sure he does not give them a reason to try.

After high school he becomes a cop, thinking that preventing crimes meas the same thing as keeping the dead from haunting him. Neither of those things happens and in the end he can’t even get himself to shoot when he needs to. 

After getting out of the hospital he moves north and enrolls at the FBI academy. If he cannot prevent crimes, the least he can use his talent for is giving peace to those who have been wronged.

In the end, they refuse to make him a proper agent on behalf of him being too unstable and Will can’t even blame them. That he is not normal is something he has always known. At least they let him teach.

The teaching job is nice, still helping to solve murders, but not having to avoid the victims eyes across their mutilated corpse, or so he things until Jack Crawford comes barging in, asking for help. He knows how to play Will, while being unaware of what his particular talent really consists of. It is better that way, Will thinks At least it keeps him out of the psych ward. Grown men having invisible friends are not threated kindly.

 

*

 

The more he goes into the field, the more Will knows he can’t keep doing this. Not for long, at least, but he does want to save lives. It is all he ever wanted to.

The Marlows give him nightmares, like they always do. They also have nothing truly useful to say, leaving Will to grab onto scraps for his lectures, find ways to explain how he came to know the things he knows.

Lately he’s feeling more and more like he is standing at the edge of a cliff, barely keeping his balance, tempted to give in to vertigo. He has no idea what lies at the bottom of that abyss. Death or insanity. Both sounds tempting, some nights.

Then he is sent to view the corpse of Elise Nichols, is introduced to Hannibal Lecter and things start to finally fall apart. He shoots Garreth Jacob Hobbs not once but nine times, the ghost of the man clinging to him and Will? Will is starting to believe that going over the edge is not such a bad idea. He only has to catch this killer first.

 

*

 

There is no question why Hobbs sticks around. Will killed him and Hobbs is not the kind of man to forgive a slight like that. He killed him and liked it, Will can’t help but remember whenever the catches the dead man linger at the edge of his vision.

This is the reason he was unable to pull the trigger back when he worked as a cop. The others never saw them, but he did and being haunted and aware of it every second? It scares the shit out of Will the same it did as a kid.

Of course, this is not something he can talk about during his conversations with Hannibal. Official patient or not, he is still a shrink and Will knows better than to mention his special gift in front of one. One he more and more dies not mind spending his time with, but that does not change a thing other than making Will feel like shit for lying.

The mushroom garden is such a strange case that disturbs Will deeply. With the victims kept alive for so long, but their spirits gone long before their body follows, there is nothing much left Will could listen to. Some incomprehensible murmur at best. That and the urge to disappear into his shower and never come out again.

Talking to Hannibal helps, surprisingly. For one, he does not handle Will like he might break, which is a nice change from his colleagues. The pompous office becomes a place where Will feels like he can almost be himself. And Hannibal… While the man is not honest, he does not seem to be lying either. He just is. The gauge he promised to be and, slowly, becoming a friend. Will could use a friend.

 

*

 

There are never any ghosts with any of the Chesapeake Rippers kills. The same goes for the Copycat Killer. Both is unusual and absolutely maddening for Will, as it leaves him with nothing to work with but what forensics can find, which is nothing useful. 

This killer will be the last, he tells himself while standing above Marissa Schurr in the morgue. No more chasing killers once he has found the Ripper. The day the they arrest (or kill. Will does not care) him will be when he hands in his letter of resignation. He is done. He will pack up his dogs, sell his house and move far, far away. Maybe he will go and visit Sarah, if she is still around. Hell, he will even take Hobbs if he can’t find a way to get rid of the man until then. Will has always been more comfortable with the dead than the living.

 

*

 

Visiting Abigail is as awkward and uncomfortable as the first time, Will discovers. The fact remains, that he made her an orphan instead of living with a parent in prison but still alive. There is guilt, but Will thinks there would be more if not for how the suspicious absence of Hobbs makes him seethe with silent rage.

“You are a coward,” Will says to Hobbs, once they are on the road, safely away from any curious ears. His knuckles are white from how tightly he grips the steering wheel. “You cannot look at Abigail without feeling guilt and so you don’t.”

“You are trying to steal my daughter. You and that doctor,” Hobbs spits. Will does not even try to stop the bitter laugh from escaping.

“Don’t give me that bullshit. You are afraid, nothing more. Afraid of admitting what you did to her. It’s you who decided to make her an orphan. You wanted her to die? Well, she didn’t and now you don’t want to face the consequences. Fucking coward.”

Hobbs is quiet after that, only staring ominously from the backseat, because the asshole can’t even sit up front like the adult he is and has to add drama by staring at Will through the rear-view mirror. Will keeps driving, occasionally watching the dead man’s reflection.

The quiet gives him time to calm down, the anger slowly making room for a creeping headache. Will slowly lets out a breath.

“You could go to Abigail instead, you know? Protect her. I have never tried to… dislodge someone from where they decided to stick around, but I will. I know you love your daughter, that is why you did not want her to live alone.”

“You know who sounds like the man on the phone? Your doctor friend,” Hobbs says, like he has not heard a thing Will said.

“What?”

Hobbs only stares, dead eyes boring into his. Will’s insides go cold.

“He is not.”

“Doctor’s not what? Not your friend? Or not the man on the phone? ”

Will does not know how to answer that. Because one thing he knows for sure? The dead don’t lie.

 

*

 

Hobbs’ remark keeps Will awake at night. Because what if? Will would have seen if one of the Ripper Victims was attached to Hannibal the same way Hobbs was to him, but he also knows this is not the only way it can happen. Hobbs clearly believes it to be a viable possibility and Will would be useless if he did not listen to the dead. 

The thing about the Ripper – apart from the lack of the victim’s spirits – is the organ removal. Trophies are a powerful thing, even more so with organs. No matter who the Ripper is, there will be spirits somewhere related to him. So the easiest way to proof Hannibal’s innocence would be to check everywhere the man is spending a significant amount of time.

So Will keeps his eyes open. There are no spirits – however weak - openly following the doctor, but Will of all people knows how little this says. There are none in his office either; neither in the office proper nor any any of the easily accessible parts of the building Hannibal shares with a small law firm. Which leaves his home.

In the end, Will does not need to think of an excuse to visit Hannibal at home. Instead he is invited to dinner at the man’s home. Will is not sure how he feels about the invitation, but says yes. It is what he wanted, is it not?

 

*

 

Before leaving for Baltimore on the evening of the dinner, Will spends more time than he should on deciding on a shirt. It is ridiculous, he knows, but he does not want to look like he has no idea how to dress himself. He does his best not to listen to Hobbs’ comments, but by the time he pulls up in front of the house he feels like a freak again. This is just… He has no idea what this dinner is supposed to be, if he is being honest. Friends spend their free time with friends sometimes and Will should not read too much into it. What es is reading into it, he is not sure. Something. Nothing. He kills the engine, picks up the bottle of wine from the passenger seat and walks up to the front door to ring the bell.

It does not take Hannibal long to answer, sleeves rolled up and sans the usual suit jacket, but Will has no time to appreciate the display. Because the moment he walks through the door, Will stops. Freezes, more likely, because what he sees is more than he can stomach. It takes him a moment to make sense of the mass off ghostly presence in the house, in the _kitchen_. Hannibal, polite as ever, is being followed by a _cloud_ of accusing stares from ghostly pale eyes, some of them missing parts parts of their astral bodies where they have been ripped from their flesh-and-bone ones. There are. Just. So. Many.

He sees Marissa Schurr among them and feels sick. These ghosts are something different, bound to a place but also to Hannibal and Lord, Will has no idea what to do. There is anger and hurt and betrayal and he is… He is tired. Tired of trying.

“Will,” Hannibal starts, genuine concern in his voice, reaching out a hand and Will flinches back.

“I am sorry. I just came in to tell you first. I am quitting. Going to hand in my resignation first thing tomorrow. I am sorry I did not call in before but things have come up, I am moving. Sorry.”

At least he is not shaking, Will thinks, somewhere at the back of his mind. He pushes up his glasses, eyes meeting Hannibal’s. This, he knows all of a sudden, is the drop too much. Because the thing? The only living person Will has felt any type of kinship with is a killer. What does that make Will? That is not a question he is ready to face.

“Goodbye, Hannibal,” he says as he turns, ignoring both Hannibal and Hobbs, both saying his name. Florida sounds very nice, all of a sudden. The dogs will like it by the water. And Will? He will manage or he will not.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see me rambling about writing and a lot of random blogging, visit my [tumblr](http://cucumber-of-doom.tumblr.com/) because that's where the cool kids are.


End file.
